diff --git a/sed/config/default.yaml b/sed/config/default.yaml
index d6c15956..3d591926 100644
--- a/sed/config/default.yaml
+++ b/sed/config/default.yaml
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ dataframe:
   # binning factor used for the adc coordinate
   adc_binning: 1
   # list of columns to apply jitter to.
-  jitter_cols: ["@x_column", "@y_column", "@tof_column"]
+  jitter_cols: ["@x", "@y", "@tof"]
   # Jitter amplitude or list of jitter amplitudes. Should equal half the digital step size of each jitter_column
   jitter_amps: 0.5
   # Time stepping in seconds of the successive events in the timed dataframe
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ energy:
 momentum:
   # binning axes to use for momentum correction/calibration.
   # Axes names starting with "@" refer to keys in the "dataframe" section
-  axes: ["@x_column", "@y_column", "@tof_column"]
+  axes: ["@x", "@y", "@tof"]
   # Bin numbers used for the respective axes
   bins: [512, 512, 300]
   # bin ranges to use (in unbinned detector coordinates)
@@ -110,6 +110,6 @@ histogram:
   bins: [80, 80, 80]
   # default axes to use for histogram visualization.
   # Axes names starting with "@" refer to keys in the "dataframe" section
-  axes: ["@x_column", "@y_column", "@tof_column"]
+  axes: ["@x", "@y", "@tof"]
   # default ranges to use for histogram visualization (in unbinned detector coordinates)
   ranges: [[0, 1800], [0, 1800], [0, 150000]]
diff --git a/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml b/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml
index 4848945f..f191c97e 100644
--- a/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml
+++ b/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml
@@ -25,30 +25,19 @@ dataframe:
   timed_dataframe_unit_time: 0.001
   # list of columns to apply jitter to
   jitter_cols: ["X", "Y", "t", "ADC"]
-  # dataframe column containing x coordinates
-  x_column: "X"
-  # dataframe column containing y coordinates
-  y_column: "Y"
-  # dataframe column containing time-of-flight data
-  tof_column: "t"
-  # dataframe column containing analog-to-digital data
-  adc_column: "ADC"
-  # dataframe column containing bias voltage data
-  bias_column: "sampleBias"
-  # dataframe column containing corrected x coordinates
-  corrected_x_column: "Xm"
-  # dataframe column containing corrected y coordinates
-  corrected_y_column: "Ym"
-  # dataframe column containing corrected time-of-flight data
-  corrected_tof_column: "tm"
-  # dataframe column containing kx coordinates
-  kx_column: "kx"
-  # dataframe column containing ky coordinates
-  ky_column: "ky"
-  # dataframe column containing energy data
-  energy_column: "energy"
-  # dataframe column containing delay data
-  delay_column: "delay"
+  columns:
+    x: X # dataframe column containing x coordinates
+    y: Y # dataframe column containing y coordinates
+    tof: t # dataframe column containing time-of-flight data
+    adc: ADC # dataframe column containing analog-to-digital data
+    bias: sampleBias # dataframe column containing bias voltage data
+    corrected_x: Xm # dataframe column containing corrected x coordinates
+    corrected_y: Ym # dataframe column containing corrected y coordinates
+    corrected_tof: tm # dataframe column containing corrected time-of-flight data
+    kx: kx # dataframe column containing kx coordinates
+    ky: ky # dataframe column containing ky coordinates
+    energy: energy # dataframe column containing energy data
+    delay: delay # dataframe column containing delay data
   # time length of a base time-of-flight bin in ns
   tof_binwidth: 4.125e-12
   # Binning factor of the tof_column-data compared to tof_binwidth
@@ -155,7 +144,7 @@ energy:
 momentum:
   # binning axes to use for momentum correction/calibration.
   # Axes names starting with "@" refer to keys in the "dataframe" section
-  axes: ["@x_column", "@y_column", "@tof_column"]
+  axes: ["@x", "@y", "@tof"]
   # Bin numbers used for the respective axes
   bins: [512, 512, 300]
   # bin ranges to use (in unbinned detector coordinates)
@@ -226,7 +215,7 @@ histogram:
   bins: [80, 80, 80, 80]
   # default axes to use for histogram visualization.
   # Axes names starting with "@" refer to keys in the "dataframe" section
-  axes: ["@x_column", "@y_column", "@tof_column", "@adc_column"]
+  axes: ["@x", "@y", "@tof", "@adc"]
   # default ranges to use for histogram visualization (in unbinned detector coordinates)
   ranges: [[0, 1800], [0, 1800], [256000, 276000], [0, 32000]]